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Faster broadband boost for Windermere

CONNECTING Cumbria delivered a major boost today by making faster fibre broadband available to the first area of the Lake District.

Windermere, including Bowness-on-Windermere, has become the first part of the Lake District National Park to be connected to the new fibre optic network.

Nearly 2,000 homes and businesses are now able to access it, and this figure will rise to around 4,000 when engineers complete the upgrade work in the coming weeks.

Tim Farron MP joined representatives from Cumbria County Council, BT, Lake District National Park Authority and businesses in welcoming this exciting new development.

Bill Jefferson, LDNPA chairman and Connecting Cumbria partnership board member, said: “As the UK’s largest National Park, with over 40,000 residents and almost 15 million visitors a year, we are well aware that fibre broadband is becoming a ‘must have’ for our communities and businesses to thrive.

“This marks an exciting stage in the roll-out for the Lake District with Windermere and Bowness as one of our main gateways to the National Park with a thriving community and visitor economy>”

Connecting Cumbria has so far brought faster fibre broadband within reach of 24,000 homes and businesses across the county.

Once an area has been enabled, people can get download speeds of up to 80 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps.

It’s an ‘opt in’ service and because the Openreach network is ‘open’, people can choose from a number of different fibre providers, ensuring competitive prices.

The partnership, which builds on the commercial investment of BT and other providers, will ensure at least 93 per cent of Cumbrian homes and businesses can access high-speed fibre broadband by the end of 2015.

It is jointly funded by Cumbria County Council, BT, the government’s Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) programme, with additional funding from the European Regional Development Fund.